Riverside meanders

 The common thread today was the floodplain of the Murray River, where the red gums towered majestically in unusual shapes, depending on the way the floodwaters had shaped them. Sunlight filtered and gleamed on the trunks.  
The township of Tocumwal had been bypassed by passenger trains but the Lions members served us a classic morning tea in the station staff room. Meanwhile, a modern diesel locomotive engine stood ready to cart containers across the river and down to Port Melbourne.   
Rainbow bee eaters fluttered high in the red gums, catching insects. Three paused briefly on a branch and I managed to zoom in on their vivid colours.

 

From a bird hide on Quinn Island, we observed a friar bird attending to its nest, suspended in the shape of a Viking ship and tastefully decorated with blue twine.

  
Further upstream, we came upon a narrow bridge with a three-tonne load limit. David assured me that the Prado weighs only two tonnes, so we were all right. We carefully eased the 4WD over the wobbly planks to the other side.

   
It was the first day of the fishing season and fishers in little tinnies were trying their luck for Murray cod.

 

Kookaburras kept an eye out for edible movement. A platypus wriggled its flat tail in the snags near the riverbank, but I wasn’t quick enough to capture them on record. All about was spring activity.

Foodies’ delight on Cobram Farm Gate Trail

A farm gate visit to three properties near Cobram provided some tasty Christmas presents. First stop was Cobrawonga Estate and Nursery, where we sampled Luke’s native plum jam and wild bush dukkah and toured a dry country garden with a creek running down the centre.

   
 
The owner’s wife had rag-doll cats, which were cute and laid back.

  
Next stop was Byramine Homestead, one of the oldest homesteads in Victoria, built by Elizabeth Hume (sister-in-law of the celebrated explorer) in about 1840.

  
They served a delicious lunch.

  
Then it was on to Rich Glen Olives, which gave us an insight into the diversity of products which can be made with olive oil, including beauty products. Being with Red Hill Probus, we admired the painting of Red Hill that hung behind the counter.

  
They also stocked other local produce including a delicious soft Boosey Creek cheese. What better way to finish the day than a Monday night two-for-one deal for Diamond Club members at The Top Pub, founded 1897.

  

Turtle and Koala by Murray River at Cobram

  
A short-necked turtle ignored us as we tootled by, heading upstream on the paddle boat Cobba.

Riverboats don’t need a wooden helm these days. The skipper of the Cobba uses a remote control. A diesel engine drives a generator that powers each paddle wheel separately, so each paddle can be controlled independently, at different speeds or direction.

   

The Cobba paddle boat moored at beach on River Murray, Cobram. The Murray is Australia’s longest river system, defining some of the boundary between the states of Victoria and New South Wales and finally emptying into Bass Strait in South Australia.
 
A pleasant cruise from Cobram up the Murray River took us under a historic drawbridge, past houseboats, then alongside an island sanctuary where koalas looked down at us from red gums above century old post-and-rail fences.

   
Disused drawbridge on River Murray, built in the days of paddle steamers and sailing boats.

 
Koala in red gum on Quinn Island, now a sanctuary.

   
Houseboats moored at the anabranch at the end of Quinn Island.

 
Post-and-rail fence from early twentieth Century stands above eroded bank of Murray River on Quinn Island.

Signing off at the end of a long day

The Great Ocean Rode is another great road journey and on a fine morning offers the beauty of limestone stacks, jewelled ocean and foaming waves.
   
 

London Bridge (above) may no longer be connected to the mainland but is a handsome view.

Further along, Melba Gully is a shady rainforest of towering beeches where tree ferns flaunt their feathery skirts and brilliant orange bracket fungus winks from below tree trunks. Such contrast of light and dark is fiendishly difficult to capture on camera.

   
 

As we leave Queenscliff, we bid adieu to the boats in the marina and sail into the sunset until the next trip.

   
 

Homeward bound

  
Last February while in Mount Gambier we enjoyed coffee and delicious cakes at Cafe Metro. We also stocked up on comfortable clothes at reasonable price at the Rivers outlet.

So we left Robe this morning and decided to revisit Mount Gambier and both these businesses. We weren’t disappointed. After coffee and yummy Sicilian cartocci (cannoli filled with orange flavoured custard) at Metro, we did a lightning shop at Rivers and are fitted out for the end of winter.

By lunchtime we crossed the state border and stopped at Bird Bath roadside rest area, Dartmoor, which has a natural spring. It was a long-settled area with streets lined with wild daffodils and an old rail line.

  
We are overnighting at the coastal town of Warrnambool, where we have enjoyed a delicious dinner at Old Clovelly restaurant and a sound and light reenactment of the shipwreck of the sailing ship Loch Ard. Cameras were banned from the Shipwreck show, but here’s the fish with risotto and rocket salad. David had chicken with rice cauliflower and bok choy.

  

Winter beach combing near Robe

  
South of Robe is an ocean beach with wild waves.

  

 As the waves crash and spray on the rocky outcrops, the receding tide throws up treasures from the ocean: kelp, plastic trash broken and distorted, bottles encrusted with cockles, feathers, driftwood.

  
  
As we basked in the noontime glare, we noticed some translucent opaline shapes that may be shark eggs?

  
Behind the dunes is a freshwater lake where hoary-headed grebes, black swans and musk ducks feast on the underwater grasses.

  
  
It’s a soothing contrast to the charged energy of the ocean waves.

Coorong walk after rain

  
The Coorong is a system of lakes behind the dunes in the southeast of South Australia. It includes samphire swampland and melaleuca. This morning, we pulled into the Coorong National Park at Chinamen’s Well, which we had visited six weeks ago coming over from Victoria. Suddenly the rain stopped and we leapt outside to tackle a nearby walk: the Nakun Kangun, which runs for 27km along the Coorong.

  
Some of the walk was through melaleuca forest (see above), past samphire lakes.

  
There were delicate orchids if you looked carefully.

  
Correa:

  

We continued to Kingston SE, which has a cool historic lighthouse.

  
Finally, we are in Robe, where we have caught up with family in the first house we have been in for nearly seven weeks.

Windswept Wikicamp inspiration

  
After a cheery roadside coffee break opposite a fertile field of some vegetable north of Adelaide, we took turns driving with me steering the ‘rig’ south to just outside Adelaide and David taking over for the tricky urban section through the suburbs of a capital city.

  
This meant a late lunch of packet soup and cheese toastie on a side road, near Murray Bridge. The sky looked ominous (see above) and we thought we’d better settle into a sheltered campsite soon.

Using the useful app Wikicamps, we located an old alignment and driving through high winds and rain, finally nestled in behind a large sand dune. It provides shelter from the traffic noise but the dune is in the leeward side, so we still are buffeted by wind. 

  
Our gas fridge wouldn’t stay alight, so Dave has rigged up a fix using a canvas cover he purchased to keep heat (!) off the back of the fridge.

  
Putting on my raincoat, I couldn’t resist playing with the creative function on my compact camera to get some interesting effects: windswept tree, our lonely campsite, a child’s abandoned Croc.

  
  
The rain has now abated and a herd of cows is staring dumbfounded at us. So it’s not as lonely after all. A camper’s life is full of surprises.

Remarkable walks

  
Mt Remarkable National Park, just south of Port Augusta in South Australia, is well named. Although it is on the Goyder line and turned out to be unproductive for grazing, it supports huge river red gums. Apparently, the secret is Mambray Creek, which only flows in wetter periods, has underground counterparts which the deep-rooted gums are able to access and siphon upwards.

We did three walks and the first was among the gums, which continue to thrive even after they are hollowed out by fire and termites. Can you see David, cleverly concealed inside this one?

  
Along the river were native pines as well as gums, affording a pleasant shade.

  
After a caffeine fix, with sandwiches in our backpacks and we headed off on a second walk, this time to Sugargum Lookout.Ironically, the view from the lookout was almost obliterated by sugar gums!

However, a historic shepherd’s hut proved a pleasant lunch stop.

  
The spring wildflowers were beginning, including this native hibiscus:

Bulbine lily:

  
In the late afternoon we tackled a short walk to the ruins of the original homestead, where generations of lessees had struggled to make a living grazing sheep. The cemetery provided a moving reminder of how harsh life was for families, with several graves of children.

  
Threatening clouds and the lure of King Island Blue Ash cheese with a pre-dinner drink called a halt to play and we returned to the caravan, but not before I had uploaded yesterday’s blog near the park entrance, which had 3G connection.

It’s been a hard day’s drive

  
to paraphrase a Beatles song. We drove from 10:00am to 5:00pm with breaks. Dave did 90% of the driving and I had a half hour’s van towing lesson, but I think Dave finds it as tiring being a passenger as driving because he is instructing me. Hopefully I will gradually be more help, but navigating using Hema maps on the iPad and Wikicamps is more to my liking.

I did take some photos as we edged steadily east across the South Australian section of the Nullarbor. We shared the highway with road trains. The sign on the back of this one says that it’s 37 metres long.

 Then a police car came towards us on the wrong side of the road, lights flashing. This was to warn us of an extra wide load carried by an approaching vehicle. It turned out to be two trucks each with a mining bucket that took up both lanes of the Eyre Highway.

  
Gradually civilisation encroaches, reminding us that our holiday is finishing soon. Our lunchstop the rest area was bounded by a fence with wheat planted the other side, plus powerlines and underground cable. A far cry from the unfenced wilderness plain that we had spent the last four days traversing.Edit

  
At Esperance we submitted our Nullarbor Links scorecard to the Information Centre and David proudly took possession of a Certificate of Completion, including his score – 146! The attendant said that the highest score she had processed was over 400! What with crows stealing balls, saltbush concealing them and trees concealing the greens, it’s a miracle that he finished at all.

We are now at a cosy caravan park and pub at Poochera, in South Australia’s wheat belt. Major Mitchell cockatoos, with their pink plumes, flutter and squawk around the gleaming silos. After four nights in the bush, it is a luxury to wash hair and clothes and enjoy pub-cooked fresh whiting from nearby Streaky Bay. But we will always cherish our memories of the vast Nullarbor plain and its beautiful southern seascapes.